What Makes for Good Therapy?

The longer I work in this field, the more I believe that good therapy should consist of a few basic essentials. 

A strong relationship, a clear and honest dialogue, a safe place for experiencing strong emotion, time to reflect in depth and challenge old beliefs, insight into patterns and dynamics, the ability to tolerate frustration to work through the discomfort of change (yes, even good change can be uncomfortable at first), a strong focus on appropriate goals, and a place where personal responsibility is encouraged and dependency is discouraged.

The therapist needs to have a working knowledge of the prominent aspects of a number of therapuetic approaches including  – family systems, psychodynamic, developmental, cognitive-behavioral and existential. Transformation will happen when one is allowed to ask and answer individual questions in a safe environment and tap into their own undeniable intuition and truth.